One thing the Church of God movement has been good at is making prophecies that have all failed. Every single one of them, every single time. It doesn't matter if it was Herbert Armstrong, Gerald Flurry, Gerald Waterhouse, Bob Thiel, or Dave Pack. Everything they have ever predicted to happen has failed and failed epically!
When those failures happen the excuses flow faster than any river ever could. The excuses are so fast and furious that they quickly divert attention away from the failure and into a new direction. God always had something more to reveal or worse yet, God delayed the prophecy because the brethren were not ready. They were the cause of the failure. Not enough prayers, not enough money given...the reasons were endless.
When blaming the brethren did not work as well as they wanted they resorted to a new tactic. All of the failed prophecies were only speculation so therefore the prophet or church leader cannot be held accountable. It was just wishful thinking and a desire to warn people.
This brings us to today when the Philadelphia Church of God has reposted a 2007 article by King Gerald Flurry where he wrote complaining that an Edmond Oklahoma newspaper in 1994 branded him a cult leader. Nothing pops the corks of COG leaders more than being labeled as cult leaders. Flurry was still reacting in 2007 to that butthurt and then again in 2023 proving he is still bitter over the words printed in 1994. This is the same kind of childish reaction we see today in Bob Thiel and others. Butthurt"ness" runs deep in Armstrongism.
Flurry places himself right up there next to Jesus in the suffering he has to endure being a prophet of God". He writes:
Was Christ a Cult Leader?
Back in 1994, a local newspaper published an article about the Philadelphia Church of God. The author titled the article, “Is It a Cult or ‘God’s Church’?” One subhead was about our unorthodox beliefs—as if that is bad. Webster’s Dictionary describes a cult as “a group with unorthodox beliefs.”
Jesus Christ had unorthodox beliefs! They were so unorthodox that they eventually got Him killed! And make no mistake about it, Christ was killed because of what He taught. The people liked Christ’s personality. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). But they hated His message—and they hate Christ’s message today. That condition never changes. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).
Yet here we are in 2023, almost 35 years after Flurry formed the Philadelphia Church of God and he still hates Christ's message. He hated it in 1980 when he was part of the Worldwide Church of God and still hates it today in 2023. Nothing irritates COG leaders more than talking about Jesus and the acts of grace, justification, and sanctification. If they cannot bow down to the altar of the law then it is not worth talking about. The acolytes of Baal bowing down before his statue are exactly like the COG leaders today bowing down to the altar of the law with their backs turned towards Jesus. They will sacrifice their firstborn and brethren at that altar before they will turn around and be followers of The Way.
Which group hated Christ most of all? The religious people were the ones screaming, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” False religion continues to play that role today—all over the world. “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world …” (Revelation 12:9). Satan has totally deceived this world. The world’s religions don’t know who God is! Spiritually, they don’t even know themselves!
False religion continues to this day in the Church of God movement with the 400 some splinter groups all professing a different Jesus, when and if they even dare to mention his name. Gerald Flurry, Bob Thiel, and Dave Pack have absolutely no idea who Jesus is or what the New Covenant has accomplished.
Then we get to the double-speak by Flurry about prophecy, predictions, and speculation. The dance is epic:
The reporter had this to say in his article: “During the mid-1950s, he [Mr. Armstrong] published a pamphlet entitled, ‘1975 in Prophecy.’ It warned of a worldwide nuclear war in 1972 and Christ’s return three years later. … When the world didn’t end on schedule, Armstrong withdrew his pamphlet from circulation.” I was asked about this statement before the article was published. I told the reporter that not one of Mr. Armstrong’s critics could prove that statement about the book and they never have over the years! That is because Mr. Armstrong never said those events would occur on those dates. There was only speculation that those events could happen in that time period. I took the time to explain this in detail. The reporter still wrote the same statement without proof. And so the error is perpetuated without excuse! But reporters read such statements and often believe them because there are several critics making these claims. If people hear a statement frequently enough, they often believe it.
The blatant lying by Flurry over Herbert's failed prophecy, which was NOT a prediction, but a fact that the church taught is epic here. The WCG had the fortitude to withdraw the book from publication till it could be rewritten eliminating Herbert's epic mistakes. Flurry then lies that the church never withdrew it. When it comes to rewriting Herbert Armstrong's mistakes and erasing them from memory there is no Church of God greater at doing this than the Philadelphia Church of God. They truly practice what they preach: "If people hear a statement frequently enough, they often believe it."
One religious author says a cult “is a perversion, a distortion of biblical Christianity and/or a rejection of the historic teachings of the Christian church.” But this is a great contradiction! “Historic teachings” of today’s “Christianity” itself pervert and distort “biblical Christianity”! Their “biblical Christianity” means mainstream Christianity, which is very unbiblical!
Armstrongism today perverts the message of the New Covenant. The things it does irritates the hell out of COG leaders. How dare it tell people they don't need to tithe, give offerings on non-required holy days, or offer grace and love over adherence to a law that can NEVER be kept by any human. Freedom in Christ is despised in the church. Freedom means members no longer need to submit to illogical versions of "church government" or to whack-job church leaders. Historic Armstrongism perverts and distorts the message of the New Covenant and separates its followers from the one they "claim" to follow. Their claim of practicing 1st-century Christianity is a perversion, unbiblical and blatant lie!
According to the world’s definitions of a cult, Jesus Christ was a cult leader. We must remember that making such statements can bring severe persecution! Christ proved that. He was killed for what He taught. But soon, this world is going to be severely tried for practicing such gross deceit.
Each of today's false prophets leading Churches of God will continue to lie to us, make excuses for their lies, and ultimately blame the brethren for their failures. It's time for them all to shut up and set their captives free!
53 comments:
So many people have said there a great number of failed prophecies. Can someone please list them so we can all see for ourselves instead of accusations?
They've been posted here, they are on other webs sites. Why does anyone here need to do your dirty work because you are too lazy to look them up? There are over 200 of them.
Speculation? Nice try. How many times did we hear from the pulpit, at feasts or at sabbath services, "Brethren, you should take every word spoken by God's ministers as if they came directly from Jesus Christ himself!"
And, the brethren did! The absolute resolution to any discussion was always, "But, Mr. Armstrong says......." Nobody even referred to the Gerald Waterhouse extravaganzas as speculation. How could a "hook" have any power if it had been referred to as "speculation"? Words like "might", and "possibly" were not part of the World Tomorrow lexicon! Evolutionists were bashed for using those word!
The vast majority of church members "knew" we were going to Petra in 1972, and Jesus Christ would return in 1975! When these events did not take place, there was massive back pedaling, and the church members who remained reprogrammed themselves. Of course there were people back then who say they never checked their brains at the door, and took these prophecies with a grain of salt. If anyone back then had given voice to those thoughts, we had a special word to describe them, Some may have heard it. We called them Laodiceans! Ironically enough, the primary defenders of HWA over the allegations of false prophecy are these Laodiceans. They seem to feel as if they are better than those of us who got a clue and actually left!
To me, eclectic beliefs are not the most devastating ingredients to a cult. I actually enjoy pondering the eclectic. Authoritarianism, separatism, and mind control are what makes a cult, and causes it to be toxic and dangerous. If a group puts forth a lot of effort into policing, spying, and enforcement, that is what removes members' choice, and enslaves them.
This is why I object to people labeling Jesus as a cult leader, and Christianity as a cult. Someone who knocks on the door, and wants you to willingly invite Him in is not toxic, or even authoritarian. Jesus knew that if a person does things under force and duress, it's of little value as compared to someone doing things from free will. He was the complete opposite of the Armstrong management style.
Failed prophecies.
https://hwarmstrong.com/
How many times did we hear from the pulpit, at feasts or at sabbath services, "Brethren, you should take every word spoken by God's ministers as if they came directly from Jesus Christ himself!"
Not once in all the decades I was in the WCG or a split-off.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PROPHETIC DATE GUESSES
HWA originally thought that World War II was the end of the world. It was not the end.
In the August 1952 edition of The Plain Truth, HWA claimed that Adolf Hitler had actually escaped to stage a comeback, rather than having committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin, Germany on April 30, 1945. Nothing came of any of this.
Much later, HWA explained in volume 2 of his Autobiography that, “We could not know, then, whether World War II, already under way in Europe, would continue on into Armageddon and the END of the world” (copyright 1987, page 10).
Next, HWA came up with 19-year time cycles leading up to 1972. The WCG was going to flee to a place of safety, which was expected to be Petra, Jordan, on January 7, 1972. Jesus was expected to return 3.5 years later in 1975. None of this happened. HWA's booklet called 1975 In Prophecy was discontinued.
HWA then explained in a January 12, 1972 letter to WCG church members that his 19-year time cycles had actually been fulfilled by the WCG getting to put advertisements in the United States edition of Readers Digest and getting financing for the new Ambassador Auditorium. This all sounded very nice, but it was not exactly what people had been waiting for.
HWA said in a January 28, 1979 letter to members and co-workers, “Read Revelation 10:11. This shows that after we thought we had completed the Work, or were to complete it by January, 1972, how God says, 'Thou shalt prophesy (preach) again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and KINGS!' Most of the doors to kings and heads of governments have opened since January, 1972.”
After that, the WCG fell back on the idea of 1996 being the end of 6,000 years of human history according to Bishop James Usher's numbers. In his last book, called Mystery of the Ages (copyright 1985, page 298), HWA wrote, “And, secondly, to reveal--preserved in writing for us TODAY--what is to happen “in the latter days”--actually within the next two decades--THIS LAST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY!” That did not work out either.
RCM later said that Usher's numbers were not exact and that there could be up to 35 years of play in his numbers.
GRF's PCG bought the copyright to Mystery of the Ages and deleted the part on page 298 about the last two decades of the twentieth century. GRF's PCG also produced a piece of literature called, He Was Right: Remembering five decades of accurate forecasting by Herbert W. Armstrong .
Wow-- it is amazing how those "3 to 5 years" actually means "FIFTY TO ONE HUNDRED YEARS" or more!
1:07 wrote "How many times did we hear from the pulpit, at feasts or at sabbath services, "Brethren, you should take every word spoken by God's ministers as if they came directly from Jesus Christ himself!"
Not once in all the decades, I was in the WCG or a split-off."
Well, we sure heard it in our area and I also heard it when in Pasadena as a student. HWA said. Meredith said it. Certain ministers currently in charge at UCG said it when they were in Pasadena. Yours is just another attempt to whitewash church history.
No, Gerry. Jesus Christ was NOT killed because of His teachings. What a disgusting, blatantly heretical lie.
Jesus Christ died because it was decreed before the foundations of the world. It was NOT plan B as you say, frequently. He died to take away the sins of the world. The Triune God determined that Jesus Christ, Almighty God, would take a body to Himself and die the death we deserve, in our place and fulfill the law.
Your ignorance is only outdone by your arrogance. Dave and Bob come in a photo finish second place, but this guy just makes my blood boil.
I cannot fathom the eternity that awaits him. But he deserves every last nano second of it. Wicked, wicked, vile, evil CULT LEADER.
I've already seen how YOUR interpretations of church events are incompetent. You look back in hindsight but don't know the real situation at that time. Someone here wrote that in the 1960s the church predicted that Strauss of Germany was the Beast. You are a LAUGH. A totally incompetent statement.
It was a "I wonder if ..." speculation. I was there.
I know that leaders throughout history always thought that things would happen sooner.
You don't know the context or nuances of the speculations.
I left the WCG 41 years ago. At a funeral for a lady, whose husband was a deacon in the WCG, I saw many who were members when I left. They were still members of the various ACOG's. Sad, 41 years later, they still refuse to acknowledge they're living a lie. The cognitive dissonance is strong in these ones.
2:34 said
"I've already seen how YOUR interpretations of church events are incompetent. You look back in hindsight but don't know the real situation at that time. Someone here wrote that in the 1960s the church predicted that Strauss of Germany was the Beast. You are a LAUGH. A totally incompetent statement.
It was a "I wonder if ..." speculation. I was there.
I know that leaders throughout history always thought that things would happen sooner.
You don't know the context or nuances of the spec"
Is this you, Gerald? Talk about an incompetent statement! Sheesh! The church certainly did promote Strauss as the Beast power. I was there and heard it. I also, heard it in my church read. Some people will lie to cover up COG falsehoods. Apprealy you're one of them.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PROPHETIC DATE GUESSES
HWA originally thought that World War II was the end of the world. It was not the end.
In the August 1952 edition of The Plain Truth, HWA claimed that Adolf Hitler had actually escaped to stage a comeback, rather than having committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin, Germany on April 30, 1945. Nothing came of any of this.
Much later, HWA explained in volume 2 of his Autobiography that, “We could not know, then, whether World War II, already under way in Europe, would continue on into Armageddon and the END of the world” (copyright 1987, page 10).
Next, HWA came up with 19-year time cycles leading up to 1972. The WCG was going to flee to a place of safety, which was expected to be Petra, Jordan, on January 7, 1972. Jesus was expected to return 3.5 years later in 1975. None of this happened. HWA's booklet called 1975 In Prophecy was discontinued.
HWA then explained in a January 12, 1972 letter to WCG church members that his 19-year time cycles had actually been fulfilled by the WCG getting to put advertisements in the United States edition of Readers Digest and getting financing for the new Ambassador Auditorium. This all sounded very nice, but it was not exactly what people had been waiting for.
HWA said in a January 28, 1979 letter to members and co-workers, “Read Revelation 10:11. This shows that after we thought we had completed the Work, or were to complete it by January, 1972, how God says, 'Thou shalt prophesy (preach) again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and KINGS!' Most of the doors to kings and heads of governments have opened since January, 1972.”
After that, the WCG fell back on the idea of 1996 being the end of 6,000 years of human history according to Bishop James Usher's numbers. In his last book, called Mystery of the Ages (copyright 1985, page 298), HWA wrote, “And, secondly, to reveal--preserved in writing for us TODAY--what is to happen “in the latter days”--actually within the next two decades--THIS LAST HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY!” That did not work out either.
RCM later said that Usher's numbers were not exact and that there could be up to 35 years of play in his numbers.
GRF's PCG bought the copyright to Mystery of the Ages and deleted the part on page 298 about the last two decades of the twentieth century. GRF's PCG also produced a piece of literature called, He Was Right: Remembering five decades of accurate forecasting by Herbert W. Armstrong .
The blatant lying by Flurry over Herbert's failed prophecy, ...
Flurry might be brainwashed enough to believe it himself. People believe what they want to believe. Truth is largely irrelevant.
I was there and heard it.
Show it in print.
It was reported that HWA had at one time very tactfully told Strauss, "Mr. Strauss, we know that God has quite a plan for you!"
It totally blew me away that HWA would invite "the Beast" to Ambassador College.
In the AC dorms, we often played the table game "Risk". Supposedly it was Mr. David Jon Hill's favorite game. Some of the guys would dress up in costumes for it. One of the guys dressed up as "My holiness, the Pope" in his cap and bathrobe. Another had everyone calling him "Der Fuhrer" and went around speaking German and ranting about Duetschland, even when he was not playing Risk. At least during the time that we were playing Risk the guys weren't going around the dorm loudly farting. If the little old ladies who gave their widow's mites so that we could have a college knew half of what was going on there, they might not have been inclined to allow 23 year olds teach them how to live.
NO2HWA said "I was there and heard it".
Yes you heard and read it, but WHAT? Not a statement that Strauss WAS the Beast. Not a PROPHECY and not a false prophet. The complaints are so imprecise and produce an unreliable argument.
Oh, sweetie. It is not our job to prove they never said it. It's In your lap. Both my husband and I heard it.
Anonymous 4:14 claims "NO2HWA said "I was there and heard it"."
Where did I say that here?
I do recall a good friend of mine commenting that Mr Armstrong said to Strauss that one day he would have more power than Hitler ever had. I can’t verify that, but I do recall a few years later reading that Strauss had died during the Feast of tabernacle's when I was attending a festival site in the Fiji islands. And remembering my thoughts at the time…..well he’s not the beast.
Jesus said that His coming would be like the days of Noah, when they were eating and drinking and giving in marriage till the flood came and swept them all away. Perhaps that is a clue. We will not necessarily know who this individual is until it is the time and not before? What is certain is that prediction addiction is an issue deeply ingrained within Armstrongism and much of Christianity of all shapes and colours.
I see Mr. Blinders is back! Thing is, there are too many of us around who were also there and know that he is either mistaken, or his memory is fading. 2Bad4U, Mr. B! As long as you keep spouting your nonsense, we truthers gonna dogpile ya.
Who in the hell are you talking about?
The only one living a lie is you.
Change the record NO2HWA and all the fake names on this blog, does Jesus even know who you are ?
You bang the baby drums accusing everyone of the very things you really are yourself. You never deliver anything of meat. Same old, same old. Who's fooled by these weak, spiritually sick blog posts? You pick holes in pompus, self satisfied old AC men but what does that really achieve??? I'm sure their really worried living like retired millionaires in their gated complexes. You throw dung NO2HWA and it achieves nothing.
What is this blog for ? Bitter D listers? Who dwelt amongst the spoilt elite but neither achieving high enough status to be one of them nor change anything, nor godly enough to be beloved by the membership. So you all spend your retired days throwing the dung and mocking, patting yourselves on the back. Your much of the problem as the Gerald Flurries but too far gone and lying to yourselves to see that.
Better check your undershorts, 11:14. I smell chocolate!
I find this blog to be very entertaining. Back in the day, once we were out of the church, we didn't have a voice! That was cruel and unusual, but now we have Banned and can express our displeasure with all that was wrong. So, ha ha ha ha ha on all the false teachers, false prophets, and false apostles! We're killin' their numbers, and they know it! Oh, and by the way, most of us are the epitome of maturity and balance, so believe me when I tell you, Trust me, BOOGAH BOOGAH!!!!!!
"Better check your undershorts, 11:14. I smell chocolate!"
LOL! Some of these people take themselves far too seriously. It's hilarious. I just had to post his stupidity.
Yes, Gary, these people need to realize that if they decide to rise up to defend their group, in the minds of readers they are representing that group! So, at least they should make a stab in the direction of literacy. Check spellings and use proper grammar, punctuation, etc. If they fail to do that, they make their group appear to be mostly stupid or uneducated people. What other conclusion could a reader draw?
I have heard people say the church said this or that and I was sitting in the same room and I heard the same sermon and I did not hear what they think they heard. It has to be in writing. People infer a lot.
Lying False Prophets and Arrogant Old Fools
One of the serious problems with some of the WCG splinter groups is the outright liars who boldly claim to be God's true prophets while they are actually Satan's false prophets. Fakers like Gerald Flurry and David Pack are a couple of the worst satanic frauds in this category.
Another problem with some of the WCG splinter groups is the arrogant old fools who claim that God has revealed some future trivia to them or who pretend that they can figure out or predict -- or at least correctly guess -- the future. The fact that they always seem to be wrong sort of indicates that they were just making up stuff and guessing to try to impress their gullible followers.
Do you really want to have the precious time of your life wasted by lying false prophets and arrogant old fools who will string you along by deceitfully pretending that they can reveal, or at least somehow guess, the future?
So, it sounds from your confession at 9:24, as if you've had this problem long term! Thank you so much for that comment. Clearly, you have some filter issues.
If you have the truth, what is it? What ACOG doctrines can be proven to be historical and passed down from generation to generation? What prophecies uttered by HWA and Co. ever pan out as true and fullfiled? I'll wait for your answer with baited breath.
This type of response is gaslighting.
Also worth reminding that all around 1972-75 the Church was CONSTANTLY saying "we are not setting dates".
And here you are insisting they were setting absolute prophetic dates.
Of course these ideas were around. Can't help if brains keep working, we apologize... You are misjudging the history.
No Prophecy and no false prophet.
It's your terminology.
That was the massive backpedaling, 3:04! Even the blind could see by 1972 that the prophecies were not coming in on time. What blew my mind was that the church and later ACOGs did not learn from that experience that this was false prophecy! They revised their statements to "within the next 3-5 years" and have continued to use that phrase, insisting that HWA had only gotten the dates wrong! The idiots believe that HWA made a mistake in the math, as if the return of Jesus Christ were based on some equation. As a carpenter, Jesus certainly knew His math. If it were math, Jesus would have known. Armstrongism never even considered the possibility that the reason "only the Father knows" is that Father God is going to make a judgment call to pull the plug when humanity and the planet reach a certain level or condition. No math equation or times of the gentiles, or 6,000 years for man-1,000 years for God, or 19 year time cycles can pinpoint that!
Yours is just another attempt to whitewash church history.
Stop accusing. It's a sign of weakness. I am a huge critic of HWA. But I don't have to lie about it. Satan is the big false accuser. Your pal I guess. Why can't you debunk the WCG honestly?
The emotionally distraugt false accusers need to grow up.
Mr. Blinders responding at 304 talks about the wcg saying they weren’t setting dates in 72-75…you mean after they realized their/hwa’s prophecies were going to fail?
These false prophesies are documented and numerous. I believe over 200 of them are listed on this site. Sorry, maybe when you see you can’t cover it up, you’re blinders will fall.
Agree.
Same question Pontius Pilot said to Jesus Christ.
You seem stuck in the late 1970s early 80s. Dwelling on the past is not mentally healthy, you should be walking forward with God, you are living in the WCG past, being haunted by ghosts of dead men and past events.
You wallow in it and it has most probably cost you a huge amount of faith. That is between yourself and God, no Christian can help you. But equally you have no right to smash, destroy and spoil your way, with these blogs, through any Church of God now because you were clearly hurt in the past.
Do you understand ? You shall be stopped, not by humans but by God. It will eventually end up making you worse, you won't heal doing what you do, no matter how many ones you gather in wallowing with you along the way. You want to get into members minds and mess with them, yet the only one you mess with is yourself. People look and then move on. It's life. You'll end up a statistic.
"Stop accusing.It's a sign of weakness.I am a huge critic of HWA."
Well, let's apply one of the criteria to which you suggested that we conform. Can you give us some written proof of that?
You wouldn't by chance happen to also believe that the 2020 election was stolen, would you? (just asked the question; did not accuse)
1211
There are 2 YouTube videos online where one, Joe Biden says Bush stole the election from All Gore and two, Obama says both parties steal elections all the time.
I guess it's only a conspiracy theory NOW??
The best thing to do is ignore Blinders. He doesn’t understand evidence and even when given explicit written examples of false prophecies he will ignore them. Far more than two witnesses have come forward but somehow, even though it is in the Bible, he doesn’t recognize that witness testimony is treated as good evidence.
I had to go to desktop format on another computer where comments are organized into threads to see who you were addressing, 11:16, with your comment. It seems that your response was directed to Phinnpoy at 2:55, his tale of the funeral.
You certainly must realize that so far as Armstrongism is concerned, you can't get stuck in the '70s and '80s. That's because the same rotten, toxic things are going on in the splinter cults, and perhaps even worse things, as were happening 41 years ago. The people who are truly stuck are those who are still attending, still allowing the ministry to intrude into their lives and submitting to their poison. Those who left are recovering, and recovery from something so damaging and devastating that we call it '"spiritual rape" is a life-long process. Although damaged, they are in the safety zone, so you needn't worry about them.
The people you need to be concerned for and advising are those whose very existence is still being actively damaged by being members of the Armstrong cults. They are the reason and focus for this blog, and all of us who participate here lend our own experiences and testimonies in an effort to assist, no matter the era in which we happened to be infected and affected. We refer to specific eras because that is where our own experiences occurred. It would be nice if we could go to a hypnotist and have all memories of those dreadful experiences expunged, but you could not do that without expunging many of the intertwined good experiences, upon which we also draw in our daily existence today.
Mr. Blinders at 1116 maintains his foolishness. He disingenuously frames this blog as living in the past when the issue is the present COGs that hearken to the Armstrong teachings and "golden years" of the past. Go to a COG and express your being "a huge critic of HWA" and then see which group is hanging onto the past.
You say you are a huge critic of HWA but seem very offended by criticism of HWA and that those who criticize HWA "shall be stopped, not by humans but by God". You simply do not make sense.
Like many in the COGs, you don't seem to care about others outside the COGs. This blog exists to help those inside the COGs and those outside the COGs.
Focusing on the negative of our past isn't wise I grant you, but if others were still not caught up in it, I could gladly put armstrongism and the wcg in a box that is seldom opened. As it is, a balance needs to be struck.
Apparently there are many "Mr Blinders", anyone who defends COG.
Let's say there were official and unofficial ideas about prophecy in the many years leading to 1972. The church never set dates, officially. The rest was unofficial and understood to be speculative. So differentiate.
No prophecy and no false prophet.
1975 In Prophecy was written in the 1950s when many authors were envisioning the future, with more mechanization, robot servants in homes, 50% unemployment. HWA meant it in a general way. Then theories started coming in. But the ministers would always advise that it was not definite.
Anonymous at 11:30 AM said...“The church never set dates, officially. The rest was unofficial and understood to be speculative. So differentiate. No prophecy and no false prophet.”
That is NOT how it sounded back then.
Nevertheless, let everyone now be warned that neither the WCG nor any of its splinter groups really knows exactly when the end will be. They have been off by many decades so far. It is all SPECULATION and GUESSES. The self-appointed leaders overpay themselves to make up the wrong guesses and their self-appointed followers pay dearly to financially support the wrong guesses.
The self-appointed leaders would like to guess right sometime to impress their followers, and their followers would like the guesses to be right eventually so that they will not just be a bunch of fools.
When proven wrong by the passage of time, as they all always have been so far, the self-appointed guesser (who typically passes himself off as God's one true guesser) simply takes another stab in the dark and makes up a new guess to string along his followers some more -- and to string along his own paycheck some more too, of course. His prediction-addicted financial supporters feel that they already have too much invested (that is, foolishly gambled away) to stop now, and hope that the new guess will turn out better than the old guesses, since they know that they must be getting closer by now.
Mr. Blinders at 1130 is mightily blind or deceptive. Sorry, dude, but 3-5 years is a prophecy. HWA proclaiming that he is putting his neck on the line because he knows the penalty for false prophecy shows that he believed he was prophesying. There are specific WCG prophecies of floods, famine , military conquests, sea gates, etc that had time frames now decades past. They did not occur. Official False prophecy and official false prophet.
Would members have given up their hard earned money for all the "gun laps" if they had not believed the false prophecies? Would the ministers and employees of the church and colleges have opted out of social security if they knew that the prophecies would not come to pass in their lifetimes, and they'd really need those benefits just to survive? Would young people have foregone college and university had they known that they would live fifty years doing meager jobs because the prophecies didn't come to pass? Would some rush into doomed marriages just to experience them before the end if they had realized they had to live into old age with mates they had noting in common with except the church? Would others have passed on getting married at all because of the end if they knew that it would never happen in their lifetime? Would some neglect their health, medical and dental issues throughout their lives if they knew that HWA's end times were not going to happen even by now in 2023? Would some, in their sense of urgency, have run up huge credit card debt to give big offerings, expecting never having to payoff that debt because of the end, if they had not believed the end was looming right ahead of us all?
Uh, what's this you say about all the members realizing that HWA was only speculating??? Are you really that estupido? Did anyone ever hear HWA reprimand members for giving too much to "the work", and not spending enough money on their families? Got any old member letters or quarterlies with such a reprimand. Ever hear him say that we as a church wasted too much time worrying about the end? Because all I ever heard was him fanning the flames at every possible opportunity.
I do not believe that there could even be such a person as "Mr. Blinders." Some troll discovered one of our hottest hot buttons and is gleefully pressing it again and again as he laughs at our indignation.
Anonymous at 11:30 AM said...“The church never set dates, officially. The rest was unofficial and understood to be speculative. So differentiate. No prophecy and no false prophet.”
When David was shown his sins he repented immediately, with sorrows and sackcloth;
When Saul was shown his sins, he argued back!!
Otherwise why do you think if a church has foundation built on solid ground, it fell off the cliff so fast? a flash in the pan??
anon 712,
I've considered that Mr. Blinders is simply a troll, but I've spoken to others in person that have said some of the same things.
Your post has some great points btw.
Thanks, 9:10.
We have had trolls in the past who deliberately parrot typical Armstrongite beliefs and cliches. It's really perverse, but they know that their baiting is guaranteed to get a visceral reaction, and that's what they seem to thrive on. It's almost like when a child yells, "I have to vomit". That starts everyone to running around in their attempts at damage control.
Obviously the opposite is true as well. Just wish everyone a Merry Christmas in December, and watch what happens. Or slur a holyday, like by wishing everyone a Happy Day of Atonement, or Merry Passover! Ah, the things we do to each other.
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